Every year at some
point, I
get into a discussion about Contract Year Theory. I am usually put in the
position of having to defend the unpopular position that it is a myth.
We hear
all the time about players stepping up to have a great year after
several bad
years when they are staring down their next contract. And don’t get
me wrong, it
does happen. But we get e-mail
wanting us
to note which players are in contract years, and source after source
includes
this in their analysis of players as if it is accepted universal fact
that a
player will always goose his performance in the last year of his
contract. Unfortunately, that
assumption is apocryphal. It is the same delusion
that
we suffer about car batteries blowing up when we jump start a car. We
hear
about it all the time. And say honest, when you jump a car, that
thought goes
though your mind, doesn’t it? Sure, it happens, but
who
knows how many batteries are jumped every day without someone dying. Of
course,
we don’t hear about that. We hear about the poor guy in Boise
(and for all we know that guy tried to
hook it up to the transformer at the end of the driveway! You scoff
….but check
out www.darwinawards.com
and then
get back to me.). I know that contract
year
theory is a pretty much a myth. The thoughtful and thorough David
Luciani did a
study on this a few years ago and concluded that ya … some
guys step it up a
notch, some guys don’t, most fall within margin of error. David was an estimable
baseball
writer, who respected and showed his research and I believed on that
basis, but
I never really looked for myself. Moreover, I am the writer who tells
you
several times a year to challenge what you
“believe” to be true. What you
believe may never have been true. Or it may have been true 5 years ago,
but that
doesn’t mean it is still true. I would have challenged
this
belief a long time ago but frankly at this time of year I am usually
busy with
other things and I forget. This year I remembered. Below is a list of 50
position
players in their contract years. I looked up the difference between
their
actual FPI for 2007 and the FPI that we projected for them at the
beginning of
the year. First … we
are pretty good …
many of these players fall in a rather conservative margin of error.
Nevertheless,
the over all message is unmistakable. Take a look:
Catchers Brad Ausmus (39) +.07 Michael Barrett
(31) -.24
Jason Kendall (34) -.18
Paul Lo Duca (36) -.09 Jorge
Posada (36) +.19 Jose Molina (33) -.13
Ivan Rodriguez (36) - $13MM club option for '08 -.04
Yorvit Torrealba (30)-.03
First basemen Sean Casey (34) -.03
Tony Clark (36) -.16 Scott Hatteberg
(38) - $1.85MM club option for
'08 - +.07 Ryan Klesko (37) +.05 Mike Lamb (33) -.04
Doug Mientkiewicz (34) -.11
Second basemen Luis Castillo (32) +.04 Marcus Giles (30) - $4MM club
option for '08-.19
Tadahito Iguchi (33) -.05
Mark Loretta (37) -.07 Kaz Matsui (32)
+.15 Jose Valentin (38) -.14
Shortstops
David Eckstein (33)-
.00 Cesar Izturis (28) - $5.45MM
club option for '08 -.09
Juan Uribe (29) - $5MM club option for '08 -.12
Omar Vizquel (41) -.16
Third basemen Pedro Feliz (33) +.02 Mike
Lowell (34) +.16 Alex
Rodriguez
(32) - Has ability to opt out of contract after season +.14
Outfielders Moises Alou (42) - $7.5MM club
option for '08 +.03
Barry Bonds (43) +.27
Milton Bradley (30) +.29
Adam Dunn (28) - $13MM club option for '08; becomes free agent after
season if
traded +.03 Cliff Floyd (35) - mutual option for '08 +.00 Luis Gonzalez (40) +.06 Geoff Jenkins (33)
- $9MM club option for '08 -
.05 Shannon Stewart
(34) +.05 Brad Wilkerson (31)
-.01 Mike Cameron (35) -.07
Darin Erstad (34) - $3.5MM club option for '08 -.04
Torii Hunter (32) - .11 Andruw Jones (31) -.19 Kenny Lofton (41) -.10
Corey Patterson (28) -.05 Aaron Rowand (30)
+.13 Bobby
Abreu (34)
- $16MM club option for '08 -.12 Shawn
Green (35) - $10MM club option for '08
-.01 Jose Guillen (32)
- $9MM club option for '08
+.09 Trot Nixon (34) -.09 DHs Mike Piazza (39) -.17
Sammy Sosa (39) -.08
Mike Sweeney (34) -.18 There
are 50 free agents to-be on this list and 13 of them have produced a
better-than-expected FPI this season. Of those, 5 had an FPI gain on
.05 or
less, a relatively insignificant gain. That leaves 8 of 50 potential
free
agents who raised their game a level in their contract year Among
those that have produces less than we expected, 10 of 35 (twos player
we hit in
the nose) had an FPI drop of .05 or less, again, relatively
insignificant. In
addition 11 more were players that are 36 or older, or catchers 34 or
older.
Sprinkle in a handful of injuries and we are down to 10 or so who are
legitimate case studies … So we have 8 players who we can
say upped their game
this year and about 10 who didn’t do as well as perhaps they
should have. Seems
like the type of split you’d expect from any random group of
50 players at any
point in their contract curve, doesn’t it? The
two big winners among position players are Jorge Posada and Mike
Lowell. The
two big losers are Andruw Jones (wow) and Bobby Abreu. Ok,
we have to put A-Rod in their as well, but a) can money really be
motivating
him at this point? And b) can he really “cash in”
much more than he already
has? We
will do pitchers next week, but for now, there is your 2007 applied
application
of contract year theory.
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